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Psychological Development
Psychological Development rests on three strands of research: Personality, Cognition, and Morality. Personality Development The work in terms of development of personality was pioneered by Erik Erikson. Psychosocial crises are the focus of his work, stages where two powerful impulses are confronted and need to be resolved(Snowman, 28). The major crisis during adolescence is Identity vs Role Confusion (Snowman, 29). Identity is knowing who you are and what your role is; Role Confusion where you don't. James Marcia, following Erikson, brought the this crisis into greater definition by showing four states for the identity crisis: Role Diffusion, Moratorium, Foreclosure, and Identity Achievement(Snowman, 32). The status of Role Diffusion tends to be uncommitted to any particular ideas but also not seeking to change this (Moshman, 71). While this role seems to show up in many movies of the uncertain, angst-ridden, or unreliable teenagers, a clear example of this type in the movie does not seem to appear. The other uncommitted status would be Moratorium, which is generally a shorter term status that seeks to explore ideas and possible identities (Moshman, 71). This Moratorium status does not hold any character through this whole movie, but an example of Moratorium would be Emma, Gerry's sometime girlfriend. Most of her struggle is off camera, but we do see her at two points beginning and ending this confusion. First, when Gerry refuses to go to the obviously segregated party, she says, (52:55) “I'm not running in the same direction you are, Come with us!... You've got your priorities real mixed up this time.” After Gerry turns away, they seem to break up. Later after the Regional, she says, (83:20) “Looks like you weren't the one with the mixed up priorities, huh?” suggesting that she is coming out of a moratorium state. The Identity commitment pair are Foreclosure and Identity Achievement. Foreclosure is a status that tends to accept the values that have been taught by parents and other authority figures. This is an extremely common status for teenagers, but this status is shown in many of the adults in this film (Snowman, 33). As shown by the riot in downtown Alexandria(2:55), the attempt to boycott T.C. Williams football(9:15), and most clearly in Coach Tabor (77:33) responding to a question about trading film, “I'm not going to do anything to help that monkey.” Unfortunately, in most cases in this movie, the values learned include racism. However, the primary example is Ray Budds, Gerry's former best friend, who is seen in many places being unwilling to participate in the group bonding of the team, except as required to keep his slot. (22:56) Ray says, “Look at that traitor(Louie), and Rev, he'd better be praying that I'll block for his black behind.” Gerry responds, “Ray, if you don't block, you're not going to start.” But Ray says, “I'll start, just bi ding my time.” Later on, even though Ray goes along with the new entrance dance (67:30), He fails to block for Rev when Louie calls an audible (69:00). This leads to Rev breaking his wrist, and being out as QB for the season. Gerry talks to Coach Boone about cutting Ray, and (73:30)as the team captain does cut him. On the other hand, not every example of Foreclosure is negative. It is likely that many of the black players begin in foreclosed status, but I think Rev, Jerry Harris, is an example of a teen who has accepted the values of his parents and his church. He believes in equality and treating others as he would be treated. (22:38) He says, when Louie sits with the black players, “Come on Julius, he's just another one of God's loving family.” Throughout the whole movie he keeps his faith. Such as when (65:00) during the player's meeting discussing unity, Louie calls on him as an example and he begins to sing along with Louie quoting Isaiah 40. Finally we get to the least common status, Identity Achievement. This status indicates that one has made commitments and seeks to continue in this identity (Snowman, 33). An example who has already accomplished this is Louie Lastik. Louie comes into this movie knowing who he is, (13:05) he runs into the, currently, all black team and says, “...Someone said Football, so I come running.” He never displays racism, saying, (22:25) “I don't have any people, I'm with everybody Julius.” He clearly confirms this when he's called up by Coach Boone (23:34) and asked about his black teammates. The example of progressions through these states is Julius Campbell. Julius moves from Foreclosed to Moratorium to Identity Achievement. When we first meet Julius he seems grumpy but with good relationships among his black teammates(10:54). Yet when the team is brought together, he seems angry on the bus. (17:54) He says, “Blue, Shut up. I don't want to see your smiling and singing … you too.” Gerry, sitting next to him says, “Got that right.” Julius responds, “You can shut up too.” However, after the work of the integration at camp, Julius and Gerry begin to work together and become friends. We see some signs of Julius working through his distrust, especially after (34:44) Gerry finally call Ray out for inadequate blocking and the team begins to gel together. However, after camp it is clear that Gerry and Julius are friends as shown in many places. But we see in the Julius' response to Gerry's accident (87:24) when he cries talking to Gerry's mom. Gerry then tells the nurse that they are brothers. Julius says, (89:08) “You and I are going to move out to the same neighborhood together, and we're going to get old, and we're going to get fat, and there ain't going to be all this Black White between us.” Cognitive Development Piaget's research focused on how capability of thought developed. Adolescents are generally progressing from concrete operational thought, thinking in terms of what they have experienced towards formal operational thought, which shows a generalizing toward situations and objects not previously experienced (Snowman, 41). Overall, this film shows the football team and the town in general begin to change their views on race and prejudice, but this demonstrates only concrete operational thought as most personal relationships do. Clear examples of formal operational thinking were not apparent. However, the generalized theory of Piaget in terms of organization and adaptation seem to show up in this movie frequently (Snowman, 37). Piaget spoke of forming schema to organize the way the world works in one's thinking. When these schema are challenged it causes a feeling of disequilibrium or being out of balance. One either assimilates the new information into the schema-adjusting the new information, or one accommodates the new information and changes the schema (Snowman, 37). This behavior is shown in Julius' challenge to Gerry. As discussed above, Julius says that Gerry isn't treating the black players like he's treating the white players as captain. “Attitude reflects leadership, Captain.” The next scene, we see Ray release a block on Rev, and Gerry comes up to him and yells at him for blocking badly. This is a clear case of accommodation, as Julius challenges Gerry's scheme and Gerry brings it in to treat all the team the same way. On the other hand, assimilation is seen when Gerry cuts Ray from the team. (73:10) Ray says, “You gonna go and tell Coach Coon what to do, just like last time? But then that's right, he is your daddy now isn't he?” “I had you cut Ray.” “You're willing to ju st throw away our friendship for them?” Clearly, Ray puts this idea of getting cut from the team into the model of a race war, as shown in his earlier statement at Gettysburg, (22:56)“Look at that traitor.” Vygotsky's research is focused more on learning than in development of thinking skills. He studied at nearly the same time as Piaget, and his concept of Psychological Tools seems very similar to Piaget's Schema. However, Vygotsky saw cognition developed because of social interaction rather than Piaget's view that social interaction is an effect of cognitive development (Snowman, 50). Vygotsky proposed that learning is quicker if guided by a teacher. A suggested model of how this teaching operates is a four step process(Snowman, 53). Model desired behavior, Dialog with the student, Practice the behavior, and Confirm and reinforce the behavior. This method of teaching can be seen in the coaching, particularly in the issue of integration. Coach Boone calls(23:34) Louie forward to demonstrate his relationship with the black players. Then after no one else can do similarly, he tells them, “Each one of you will spend time, everyday with a teammate of a different race.” So he calls on them to practice, and offers consequences until they do. In term of Confirmation, he asks if anyone can't do this because the learning is not on the skill of interviewing each other, but of learning to treat each other as real people. This learning clearly takes some time, but it appears for all the team with the notable exception of Ray, they do learn to treat each other as teammates rather than strangers. This is shown in the team meeting (63:50) where the team leadership calls this meeting and talk about how to come together as a team when the world objects to it. Moral Development Lawrence Kohlberg developed a series of five stages of moral reasoning that had some relationship to age as following research by Piaget. In this movie we are concerned with stages 3-5 (Snowman, 59). Where stage 3 is the good boy orientation, where the right action is one that would impress others, stage 4 being law and order orientation, where we must obey fixed rules to keep our social order, and stage 5 being the social contract orientation, where rules depend on mutual agreement, and there are times when rules must be broken to serve a higher good. We see a prime e xample of stage 3 morality, in the protest about the bussed integration of the new high school(43:55). In the views of this Virginia town, Whites and Blacks shouldn't mix, so any integration ran up against this concept of morality. Noteworthy is the views of police removing the cover on the new T.C. Williams sign, showing that the law(stage 4) is the one requiring integration. Stage 4 is the Law and Order Orientation that bases its moral reasoning on the idea that we need laws to keep us all on the right path. This is a very common moral view and I believe most of the players fall within this orientation. We see this in Gerry's statement(9:23) where he supports the proposed boycott of T.C. Williams Football not because of explicitly racial issues, but because he felt that Coach Yoast had his job stolen from him. This decision would involve a lot of sacrifice from him in regards to his football future, but he is willing to do it. The another example of this might be the interviews the white players and the black players did with each other to integrate. Seeing Blue in Alan's room, when they try to learn about each other's taste in music (26:05) is funny. Blue clearly doesn't like Alan's Country music, but he is there and talking because it's the rule. Stage 5 is the Social Contract Orientation that says that rules are based upon mutual agreement as to how society should be run, rather than blindly following authority. This can be seen best in Coach Boone. When Dr. Day from the school board (6:11)says, “ Folks in Carolina say you marched with Dr. King.” This action shows non-violent civil disobedience which was all about breaking unjust laws and hoping to form new ones. This action shows that he has participated in actions involving this type of moral reasoning. References: Bruckheimer, J. (Producer), & Yakin, B. (Director). (2000, 29 September). Remember the titans. ''Video/DVD Burbank: Walt Disney Studios. '' Retrieved from http://viooz.co/movies/3512-remember-the-titans-2000.html Moshman, D. (2005). Adolescent psychological development : Rationality, morality, and identity. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/ Snowman, J., & McCown, R. (2012). Psychology applied to teaching, international edition (13th ed.). China: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.